Fire and sword

I have long been tired of persuading friends and good acquaintances to leave Kiev and, in general, from Ukraine - away from this branch of hell on Earth, away from the snake’s nest, where the language of negotiations is impossible, and instead of it there are deadly blows on the sly and betrayal, meanness, cruelty. I respect the personality of everyone I persuaded, but I still don’t understand the courage that I am forced to mistake for short-sightedness or desperate courage.

With poorly concealed surprise and irritation I hear the answer: “They’re not touching us yet.” I emphasize: the key word in this phrase is BYE, it is unsteady and unreliable, and also a colloquial synonym for “goodbye and goodbye”, it is sad, almost tragic and does not promise a single guarantee. The word WHILE brings up Martin Niemöller’s poem “When They Came...” from memory.

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I confess that I once ridiculed those who believed every word of a historical novel or story: they say, it is a sign of poor education to take the writer’s thoughts at face value, not to know that there is an author’s interpretation of the facts. But last August, when the Ukrainian army methodically shot Lugansk day after day, and dozens of citizens were dying every day, amid the howl of shells in a dehydrated and de-energized city, I read “The Opperman Family” by Lion Feuchtwanger and “All Quiet on the Western Front” by Erich- Maria Remarque, and understood that every word was a bitter, terrible truth.

I remember an excerpt from the memoirs of an old Jewish woman who miraculously survived Auschwitz: “Remember forever: if someone somewhere promises to kill you, believe them. Don’t argue, as we did then, before the Holocaust, that this is their policy, and they themselves are good and nice people, that they just say it that way. When they move from words to deeds, it will be too late. Believe those who promise to kill you. And if you have the strength, take up arms and kill them first to protect yourself and your families, if not, grab the children that you can take and run from there, but just don’t talk about what they say bad, but think good."

History repeats itself: humanity has already studied this topic in the school of life, but never learned the lesson. Proof of this is the murder of Oles Buzina. And so do previous murders and suicides of politicians and public figures. And hundreds, if not thousands more facts - bans on works of art, their alterations, arrests and many hours of interrogation of dissidents, the arrogant official version in the style of “they burned themselves” and “they shot at themselves”, bloodthirsty enthusiasm for the death of opponents and an inflated the image of the enemy to monstrous proportions. In fascist Germany, the enemy was made of Jews, in neo-fascist Ukraine - Russians and everyone who dares to argue with the Ukrainian Inquisition in camouflage or expensive suits, and even more so, to object.

“They won’t touch us yet,” friends and good acquaintances assure me.

- They won't stop! – I continue to convince.

There are only two ways to defeat the Nazi infection, which has blossomed wildly in Ukraine: either by depriving the cannibals of food, or by fire and sword. I lean towards the second method. And there is no democracy - it does not take root on the Kyiv slopes, unfortunately.